Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, the demand for nurses has been rising. In fact, the most-requested specialty for health care recruiting is a nurse practitioner, according to Merritt Hawkins, a national health care consulting and recruitment firm. And nurse practitioners made an average salary of $138,000, with some making as much as $266,000, based on figures from the firm’s 2022 review of recruiting incentives.
The growing demand for nurse practitioners (NP) underscores “a shift from traditional physician office-based primary care delivery settings toward ‘convenient care’ settings such as urgent care centers, retail clinics,” which are largely staffed by NPs, according to the study. NPs, for the most part, must earn a master’s degree in nursing in order to practice because they’re able to perform more duties, such as diagnose patients and write prescriptions.
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Location and specialty can makes some nursing salaries even more lucrative, Jon M. Guidi, CEO of HealthCare Recruiters International, tells Fortune. Some of the higher-paying positions include psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners and NPs who work in dermatology, aesthetics, and fertility.
“The more specialized they get, the higher their rate can be,” Guidi says. “The more things the hospital or clinic can have a nurse do that doesn’t require a doctor, the more valuable they are to that organization—and the more they’re going to pay them.”
When looking at regions across the U.S., nurses who work on the West Coast tend to earn more, on average, than any other place in the country. Merritt Hawkins’ study shows that West Coast-based nurse practitioners make, on average $145,079, while nurses working in the Midwest and Southwest make around $115,000.
In step with Merritt Hawkins’ study, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that the top five highest-paying metropolitan areas to be a nurse practitioner are all in California. The employment number listed below are estimates by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics of nurse practitioner jobs filled in those areas.
1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
Annual mean wage: $197,870
Hourly mean wage: $95.13
Employment: 1,120
2. Napa, California
Annual mean wage: $184,700
Hourly mean wage: $88.80
Employment: 90
3. Vallejo-Fairfield, California
Annual mean wage: $180,380
Hourly mean wage: $86.72
Employment: 130
4. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, California
Annual mean wage: $177,160
Hourly mean wage: $85.18
Employment: 2,550
5. Yuba City, California
Annual mean wage: $159,260
Hourly mean wage: $76.57
Employment: 30
Other places with high nursing salaries
If you’re not keen to put down roots in California, there are still plenty of cities with high nursing salaries. In fact, traveling nurses who take on shorter assignments (usually about 90 days) can make big bucks, too. Travel nurses make average base salaries of $133,640, according to Indeed. Some specialty gigs for travel nurses can earn workers hundreds of dollars per hour, Guidi says.
“Generally, you can make more as a traveler,” he says. “Some people do it because they’re young and want to experience living in [different places]. Most of the people are doing it, though, because it’s lucrative and it’s a marketplace now.”
After California, the top paying states for nurse practitioners are New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Connecticut, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nurses in these states make annual mean wages of at least $129,000.
“If you are a young person, you’re really happy to live in New York City or San Diego, or places where more people want to go, you don’t have the ability to command a higher wage,” Guidi adds. This means that in these more popular living areas, salaries may not be as high because the demand isn’t as great as it is in less popular cities.
Other top-paying nonmetropolitan areas for nurse practitioners include Southeast Minnesota ($129,340), Middle Georgia ($129,210), and Connecticut ($128,980), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
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